Open Mouth - Insert Foot

Last week, metaphorically speaking, I needed to have my foot surgically removed from my mouth.

As I entered the coffee shop, I noticed only two cars parked outside… one, a nice, sedate, dark-colored sedan, and the other, one of those mini-SUV’s with two GORGEOUS kayaks attached to a roof rack.

Inside were two couples. A young couple… each eyeing their cell phones as they ate their breakfast, and an older couple pouring over a couple of maps.

I “opened” my mouth – I spoke to the young couple and complimented them on their choice of kayaks.

I inserted my foot - “Oh”, they replied, “those aren’t our kayaks, they belong to them”, pointing to the older couple.

It turns out the older couple have been married for 51 years, and both are 73 - she being two months older than he. When they both turned 70, three years ago, they decided to try something new in honor of their “milestone” birthday. They chose kayaking.

Neither had ever done it before. They live in Rhode Island, but drove all the way up to Freeport, ME, and took a 1-day course at the nationally known outfitter – L.L. Bean - about how to select and handle a kayak. They LOVED it, and bought their kayaks on the spot.

That year, and every year since, they have taken two, week-long vacations during the summer months and traveled to a New England state, and kayaked in a different body of water each day of the week.

So far that week they had kayaked the Kennebec River in Waterville; Damariscotta Lake in Jefferson; the Passagassawakeag River in Belfast; and today they were deciding between Penobscot Bay in Sandy Point, or Swan Lake in Swanville.

They didn’t really know how to pronounce the river they had been on the day before, so I helped them with that. At the end of their meal they decided on going to Swan Lake. Sandy Point opens into Penobscot Bay, which is really the Atlantic Ocean, and it was, in their words, “a mite choppy” that day. At age 73 it’s probably wise to avoid a body of water that’s “a mite choppy”.

We all bid them “bonne chance” as they headed outside. The other couple lingered a bit longer, and I managed to coerce them into playing a 3-handed game of cribbage before they departed.

As I sat alone sipping the last of my coffee, I mused that at age 72 I could no longer do something “adventurous” for my 70^th milestone birthday, but I certainly had time to do something for “numero 75”.

I googled “adventure” and “daring” and “bucket list” in various combinations and came upon a multitude of suggestions. Some of them were WAY too daring and bold for me.

Skydiving is definitely OUT… as is, running with the bulls in Pamplona. For my taste, it has to be something a lot more staid and sedate….

Like bungee jumping over Niagara Falls.